US ambassador's tweets hint Russia is spying on him

MOSCOW -- US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul suggested Thursday that the Russian government is spying on him.

"Everywhere I go [Russian television station] NTV is there," he tweeted. "Wonder who gives them my calendar? They wouldn't tell me. Wonder what the laws are here for such things?"

The unusual tweets come just days after President Barack Obama met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in South Korea.

A State Department spokesman, peppered with questions about a string of similar tweets from the ambassador, said he was "not aware" that the US government has raised these concerns formally with Moscow.

But the administration did not admonish McFaul, either, as the ambassador used one of the world's largest social media platforms to openly hint he was being watched by forces inside America's former Cold War foe.

"I respect [the] press' right to go anywhere and ask any question. But do they have a right to read my email and listen to my phone?" McFaul also posted on his Twitter feed Thursday. "When I asked these 'reporters' how they knew my schedule, I got no answer. Heard the same silence when they met me after meeting w/ Chubais."

Reporters from the Kremlin-friendly station reportedly met him after a meeting with activist Lev Ponomaryov.

Anatoly Chubais is a Russian businessman and was a key member of Boris Yeltsin's administration.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters he read McFaul's tweets and thinks "he was simply asking a rhetorical question commenting on the fact that wherever he goes in Moscow he's finding a ... large media presence -- some of it hostile."